I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (or Close to It)
by Wolfram003
Summary: Aizawa Shōta just wants to keep the city safe as an underground pro-hero, teach his students, and not die of exhaustion. Between grading papers, taking on too many missions, fighting emotion with logic, and becoming the target of three distinct drug cartels, what does a man have to do in order to accomplish his goals and set a proper example of how to be an unsung hero? Erasermic.
1. Chapter 1: The Stage is Set

It was a warm, unusually steamy Saturday evening in spring. The humidity was high, and Shōta Aizawa's unkempt black hair was lifting and frizzing as if he had earlier utilized his quirk while defending himself against a horde of villains—except he had not. His dark irises set against a backdrop of red-veined sclerae as if he had overused his quirk—except he had not. A grimace strung along his chapped lips as if he had already been privy to the perpetration of a heinous crime that evening—except he had not. Both his appearance and mood had been caused by the unusual amounts of pollen and heat which were clearly controlled by hellish beings out to distract him from his patrol which had only just begun.

Or so he would believe if he were a less logical man.

Alas, he favored logic over fantasy and thus found himself rubbing at one of his irritated eyes with an indistinct grumble which barely penetrated the barrier of capture bindings wound around his neck and settled atop his shoulders.

He had been scouting the area for a little over an hour, but despite his intel, there had been no major happenings as of yet. From his vantage point near a monstrous smokestack on an aged industrial building, Shōta let out a long, low sigh as he awaited the arrival of representatives from various drug cartels. According to his source, two—maybe three—rings were negotiating the spread of a more potent cut of cocaine amongst their buyers—particularly those who were purchasing their goods for the first time—in order to expand their sales.

Essentially, the villains were hoping to make a quick buck.

Shōta idly wondered when villains in the city had become so predictable.

He also wondered what they were cutting with the cocaine in order to make it more potent since surely they would not be distributing a purer product. What would the effects be on the users? Would he be finding addicts with nosebleeds and muscle spasms roaming the back alleys, or would they be suffering from more extensive disinhibitions and venturing into stroke territory? Would the new cut of drug have harsher withdrawal symptoms for the user? It was likely if the cartels' united goal was to bring in a strong profit. They had to keep their customers returning somehow. That being the case, what type of profit margin were they aiming for: double, triple—anything above their current yield? What were their standards like in situations like these? It was easy to tell that the cartels were becoming desperate if they were agreeing to compromise what little values they had in order to cooperate with one another.

Question after question ran amuck in his mind, but despite his speculation, Shōta realized that this situation needed to be nipped in the bud since the ramping up of the illegal drug industry often lead to human trafficking and forced prostitution—neither of which he wanted to witness increase in the city. Being an underground hero made him more privy to such situations. It was grueling work for body, mind, and soul, and try as they might, his coworkers at UA never really understood the mental taxation of dealing with such situations. There had been times where his colleagues attempted to help, such as when Nemuri had voluntarily aided him with a human trafficking sting once upon a time—in a fit of righteous, if likely misguided, passion, undoubtedly—, but Shōta could honestly say that he never wanted to see her eyes that haunted again and thus never uttered a request for assistance again. Yet, it was something he regularly handled along with the police and other covert heroes since it was rarely a one-man job.

Situations like that were why he had trouble truly letting down his guard and sleeping restfully at night. Who knew what was happening in the city at this very moment that would slip under the heroes'—well-known and underground alike—radars?

Regardless, his mind was wandering too much, he decided as he rubbed a finger under his nose, olfactory senses protesting the increased pollen in the air for the umpteenth time that evening. He could not afford distractions when the meeting between cartels was supposedly drawing near, nor could he afford to give his position away by sneezing since stealth was a matter of importance in his line of work.

A heavy steel door screeched as it was steadily pushed open.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear—that was the phrase of the year, was it not?

Shōta fluidly spun to catch the rooftop intruder in his sights, not yet activating his quirk and instead choosing to remain hidden in the shadows of the large smokestack yards away from the newcomer.

The cartel representative was a monster of a man. He most definitely had a mutation quirk, and Shōta's exasperation at that realization was certainly not minimal. With skin like Kirishima's when the boy's quirk was activated, the hulking thug easily stood above six feet tall, if not closer to seven, even without the gnarled horns protruding from his forehead; he easily rivaled All Might in terms of height. In spite of his intimidating appearance, the man wore what appeared to be an expensive, pinstriped suit.

Definitely flaunting money and power, Shōta noted critically.

"Oh, you're already here," came a silken voice from another portion of the rooftop. Shōta whipped his gaze to the side to study the next cartel representative, making a conscious decision to slink closer to the smokestack and further into the shadows as he studied the slender blond man who stood atop a raised ridge extending over the side of the warehouse. As the, yet again, well-dressed man hopped lightly onto the roof and the bricks he had left behind crumbled into dust, the UA teacher reached up to yank his goggles down over his narrowed eyes. Ground manipulation of some sort, he concluded as he listened in on the representatives' conversation.

"Look," began the monster of a man, placing both hands on his hips as he settled into a relaxed stance, "You and me both know that using our quirks will just cause trouble that nobody wants. Let's just throw that out before anybody gets any funny ideas."

The delicate man gave a slight bow, running a hand through his perfectly-parted hair. His suit flitted between maroon and black as the moon cast its light on the duo. "But of course. We are both looking for profit, and bloodshed does not fit into those ideals at the moment," he purred smoothly. "Let us hope that our third party wishes the same."

So there is a thir—

His senses screamed at him to drop to the ground, and Shōta did so without hesitation, trusting in his instincts and narrowly avoiding a large steel pipe that flew past where his head had been only a moment before. It clanged excessively loudly against the smokestack's solid frame.

Remember your limits, he reminded himself as his body whipped upward and to the side as he swung his gaze around to find the new interloper in his recon mission.

There! The newest villain was a female, short and unassuming aside from the cocked eyebrow and vicious smirk plastered across her darkly painted lips. Firmly gripping the capture weapon around his neck, he calculated its trajectory and flung his arm out toward the woman, long hair flaring upwards as his quirk activated and erased whatever ability she had.

"Oh, no. Whatever shall I do," she drawled with a roll of her light blue eyes, raising her hands as high into the air as she was able while bound with his scarf in a facetious gesture of surrender. "We know who you are and what you can do, Eraserhead."

A thrown knife cut deeply into his side, and he flinched as he double-stepped in retreat, just barely avoiding the ground as it grew unstable and tried to snag his foot. What luck! More often than not, his opponents solely relied on their quirks, so the knife had most definitely caught him off his guard. Stupid mistake. Rubble—glass shards, stinging pebbles, and even a piece of rebar—was violently sent his way in a steady barrage which he deflected with his own weapon, dodging the debris that did escape his weaponry with relative ease and shutting down the quirks of the telekinetic and ground manipulator until—

Stars exploded behind his eyes as a fist slammed into the side of his head causing the straps of his goggles to cut into the skin of his scalp. The impact was not singular; another blast of overwhelming pain coincided with a poorly-timed clap of thunder as the other side of his skull clanged against the very smokestack that had been an ally earlier in the evening. He slid downward along the weather-corroded metal for a split-second, playing the role of a hero who was down-and-out all the while mentally cataloguing his wounds and general ailments: concussion, bloody nose, ringing in the ears, deep laceration across the right side, contusions galore, minor scratches from debris, dizziness—just to name a few.

Shōta's stomach rolled with nausea as he dove to the side just in time for the mutant's hard-as-rock fist to collide with the metal pillar instead of his own body.

This entire meeting had been a setup, and its sole objective was to remove him from the picture.

He idly wondered if he should be flattered.

Stone began latching onto his boot again, and he hurriedly busted his way free, cutting the telekinetic woman free from his line of sight in the process—a mistake if he had ever made one. In the span of less than a second, he could not breathe due to his own capture weapon strangling him. His arms were immediately restrained by ribbons of the tool when he reached up to try and loosen the garment that was acting as a noose.

The next thing he knew, he had seemingly been thrown in front of an oncoming train as the man with the mutation quirk barrelled into his side and broke him from the telekinetic's hold.

He would never pick a fight near a smokestack again, he vowed to himself as he pinballed from the side of the large column into the rooftop's breaker box and promptly pitched over the edge of the building, shaking fingers weakly willing his capture weapon to stretch out and latch onto something—anything—to break his fall as he wheezed and tried to inhale air properly. Dark spots danced in his vision, and Shōta glanced upward through blurring vision and broken goggles to catch a glimpse of the villainous trio merely watching him fall, one of them—the man or the woman—tapping a foot in annoyance as his full weight caught and hung from the carbon-nano-fiber-infused cloth that had clung to a rough patch of the roof's ledge, nearly ripping his right shoulder from its socket and causing his side to spurt blood from its earlier wound.

The woman—his sight was nearly nonexistent at this point, but it had to be the woman—flicked her hand, and his weapon went slack, dropping him like a sack of rocks down, down, down onto the side of an open dumpster with an audible crunch.

* * *

"He's down for the count, I'd wager," growled the huge thug. "He's not getting back up for a while after that beatdown."

The slender man nodded sagely, thumb and forefinger on his chin as he peered over the edge of the roof at the sight below. "I do believe you are correct, my good sir. The lady certainly does pack a punch."

With a roll of her eyes and shrug of her slim shoulders, the woman granted the two men a brief smile and began sauntering toward the rooftop's exit. "Let's go, boys. Maybe that'll teach him to stay out of our business. He'll be out-of-commission for weeks, and by then, our operations will be in full swing. We make a good team."

* * *

Thunder rumbled steadily somewhere far above where he lay, and icy droplets cut through the sweltering heat as lightning flashed across the dark clouds. Shōta's consciousness came back in steps. The first was a general awareness that he was, in fact, still alive. Breathing difficulties and stabbing pain in his chest cavity alerted him to the fact that he was heavily injured, and that was the second step taken by his waking mind. Finally, his olfactory senses were throwing a fit about wherever it was he had ended up.

It was a true struggle to open his bloodshot, bruised eyes, and it took a long moment to register that he was hanging upside-down, blood rushing to his head as he became alerted to the fact that he was face-to-face with the exterior casing of an industrial-sized dumpster.

As he lay tangled in his own capture weapon, half-in and half-out of the dumpster that reeked of weeks-old garbage, the stench of which would undoubtedly permeate and cling to his clothes for days to come, Shōta admitted to himself that this was a lesson he really needed to teach his students: battles were rarely straightforward, and the heroes did not always win. All of their experiences up until now—the USJ incident when All Might saved the day (his own failure aside) and the Hero Killer Stain incident when "Endeavor" rose to the occasion and beat down the notorious villain (as if Endeavor could ever do anything involving large amounts of logic and technique; he was all bluster and brawn), for example—showed the lighter side of heroism. It would hurt his pride (although not as much as it physically pained him now at this very moment in time), but it definitely would not kill the children to demonstrate how a hero could be seriously injured on something as simple as a standard patrol and intervention; in fact, the cold shock of it would likely save their lives somewhere down the line.

Oh, how it would hurt his pride, though, to find himself impersonating a mummy in front of them again.

Perhaps Recovery Girl would take pity on him if he obediently listened to her speech about the importance of taking care of oneself. Is it really worth it, he wondered to himself, voicing an agonized groan as his body slid fully into the confines of the dumpster, capture weapon spilling over the dumpster wall and onto the ground.

No, he decided adamantly, it's not worth it. He would not even be able to make it to UA for treatment later in the day, given the state of his body's injuries. This warranted a call to Detective Tsukauchi, one of his few contacts who understood the struggles he faced with every patrol, and a trip to an emergency room of some fine medical establishment.

Please work, he urged his phone as he patted his pocket with a trembling hand. Please don't be broken.

* * *

Everything afterwards happened so quickly that Aizawa Shōta could not even recount how he had wound up in a hospital bed. He assumed with a fair amount of certainty that someone had pulled him from the dumpster and had treated his body with as much care as possible when transporting him to the local medical center. Snippets of dialogue played through his memories—concerned voices mentioning surgery and other healing techniques, medical jargon referencing his various wounds, and soft murmurs of concern from the nursing staff who had become accustomed to seeing him around the building either for his own treatments or for those of the victims he had previously rescued.

Exhaustion oozed from his very being, and it took nearly all of his strength to turn his head and take note of the light filtering through his hospital room's window. His drooping and eternally bloodshot eyes took note of a whiteboard mounted to the wall, idly noting that it was now Sunday, and the clock tacked on the wall just above the board declared that it was eight o'clock in the morning.

He had rested here for long enough, he decided as he struggled into a sitting position. Black hair falling limply over his face, he coughed roughly before kicking his legs over the side of the hospital bed and shakily standing, mindful of the IV's needle embedded in his wrist. Fingers rough from years of heroics and the chafing coils of his capture weapon, Shōta gingerly slipped a calloused hand under his hospital gown and felt along his side for the telltale rough skin of a fresh scar healed by a quirk and was unsurprised when he found a long slice along with the remnants of several small incisions. Hm, he thought as he yawned, a stab wound and severely broken ribs—and it looks like very little bruising, as well. My head's not even spinning anymore. Healing quirks are wonderful things.

Removing his hand from under the garment, he placed it at the small of his back and arched his spine just enough to realign several vertebrae with a series of popping noises not unlike Bakugō's smaller explosions and a brief sensation of relief.

Still tired, though.

With that thought in mind, he pressed the "call" button to gain his nurse's attention and promptly—bluntly—declared he wanted to be served his discharge papers against his doctor's orders.

* * *

A few hours later with the sun high in the sky and a small bag of groceries in hand, Shōta opened the door to his sparsely furnished apartment and closed and locked it behind himself. He kicked off his boots with a bit of difficulty and tossed his keys onto his kitchen counter where they clanged loudly against a few dishes he had left out the previous night. Wavering in his steps, he set his bag of groceries on the very same countertop with a bit more care, and not bothering to put them away, the bedraggled hero staggered toward his room where, in his opinion, the most comfortable mattress in existence resided. It was calling him to it like a siren to a ship of sailors. Both he and the sailors would crash shortly once they gave in to the hypnotic melodies, and he was okay with that. It had been a long night, and he had been pushing himself too hard since leaving the hospital.

He had work tomorrow with a classroom full of talented hellions. Between Class 1-A, Hizashi, Recovery Girl (who would undoubtedly know something happened despite the lack of physical evidence), and his other colleagues, Monday would be a world of hurt for his body and mind if he did not achieve a bit more rest.

With a heartfelt groan of defeat, he collapsed onto his bed, fully clothed sans his boots, and, after drawing a long breath of air, settled into an exhausted sleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Comfort in the Flames

Everything was burning.

It was a dream; he knew it was a dream. That did not keep him from feeling the cloying heat on his skin and struggling to cool off in the vivid imagery of his dreamscape of bright spring days in the concrete jungle of Musutafu. People milled about the city—but not nearly enough people; something was odd about this even for a dream—and went about their daily deeds. The sky was cloudless, the sun a shining ball of fire casting waves of inescapable heat everywhere it touched. Even the shaded areas of the city were afflicted by the rise in temperature, leaving no place available for a person to find reprieve from the sunny weather.

In his dream, he yanked at the capture weapon looped loosely—but still too tightly—around his neck in a rare show of agitation, desperately needing to cool down from a heat-induced fever, but even the fibers of the weapon seared his fingers, eliciting a weak gasp from parched lips. The metal strands woven throughout his scarf seemingly scorched through the rough fabric of his hero costume, littering the pale, battle-scarred skin below with red welts. The goggles that hung around his neck during downtimes of heroic activity blistered the skin of his collarbone as he struggled to escape the pervasive sense of the sheer burning of his clothes, of his very skin itself.

Not a dream, he decided. Something's wrong.

* * *

Shōta's frame of corded muscle from years of training sprang like the form of a lithe jungle cat from where he had earlier fallen onto his bed—literally—after his grueling nighttime patrol, and he found himself covering his mouth and coughing harshly into his elbow as he stumbled toward his bedroom door. He kept one hand held out in front of himself to supplement his loss of clarity of sight from the black smoke that had overtaken his apartment while he had slept. Perpetually bloodshot eyes watered fiercely as he scalded his hand on the doorknob, apparently drawing even nearer to the source of the acrid smoke.

Fire, he realized. Did it start here?

Shaking his head to rid himself of curiosity and hoping to lodge a sense of logic—dear, sweet logic that rarely failed him—back into his exhausted-and-panic-rattled brain, Shōta lowered himself to the ground with jerky motions, body protesting both gross and fine motor skills as it cried for fresh air. He hoped to draw a cleaner, cooler breath into his lungs at this level of elevation but instead found himself gagging involuntarily as the contents of his stomach made an adamant decision to leave his body and flee from the bitter taste of ash, soot, and too-thick smoke.

The teacher of future heroes mentally cursed himself for having failed to change into a lighter set of clothes when he had arrived home. In fact, he was definitely regretting many of his life choices at this moment in time, one of the more prominent ones being that he let himself be outnumbered by unknown enemies not even half a day earlier, but the most immediate regret was his clothing choice. His hero costume was stifling. The capture weapon around his neck was heavy and hot.

Everything was so warm, and it was causing him to lose focus.

It seemed like the next time he blinked, he was next to the small window on the other side of his bedroom. Had he crawled? Walked, maybe? Either way, he found it disconcerting that his mind had blanked out during the process, but that was undoubtedly due to the sheer strength of the coughs violently racking his body that currently had him curling into himself on his side, thick black locks of hair matting together with sweat and grime along his face and neck.

The window was in reach, but—

"Hey!" came a distressed call in English, drawing out the vowels into long cries and enunciating words as only a radio host could even in a time of crisis. "Anybody in there?"

Mic, his mind uttered, and his hand reached upwards, fingers scrabbling along the edge of the sill.

"Shōta!" The windows rattled with the force of a familiar voice. "You in there?"

Hizashi, his brain cried weakly, and his shaking fingers flexed—spasmed, really—tapping against the superheated glass with uneven beats, palm pressing against the scalding surface with the remainder of Shōta's strength.

"There! He's in there! See—there's his hand!"

The cry was frantic yet was tempered by a spattering of relief. The taste of ash and soot pervaded his senses, gagging him, choking him, and his chest was clearly being crushed by someone with a strength quirk. The decibels of the shouting had been lowered considerably, but all Shōta could hear was ringing, ringing, ringing as he gasped and gasped—

* * *

His eyes shot open, quirk flaring to life as fight-or-flight instinct took over.

Then, it was all he could do to hunch over and take gasping, heaving breaths of smoke-tinged air that never quite seemed to fill his oxygen-deprived lungs. Breathe, he told himself while his hair fell limply in grungy chunks around his face, and, as if sensing the logic behind the thought, his chest shuddered hungrily and took in as much of the cool, if still acrid, air as it could consume with the stilted motion. Breathe.

The smell of fire and the crackle of its thunderous rampage through his apartment complex roared through his ears along with the ringing, ringing, ringing—but slowly, sluggishly, he became aware that his plea to his lungs—breathe—was also a mantra being echoed by another's overly excited voice.

"Breathe, Shōta!"

There was a cool—but still too warm—hand smoothing down his sweat-damp hair and another gently rubbing soothing circles between his shoulder blades as he slumped against a body clothed in uncomfortably hot, tacky leather.

Wincing, he struggled to take another deep breath and cast a glance from his barely opened, fiercely burning eyes—why were they burning if they were watering so much—to the source of attempted comfort. His strong frame was racked with a coughing fit as soon as he began to turn his torso to better view and analyze the situation, and Shōta was once again faced with a very real struggle of drawing clean air into his lungs. The soothing hand on his back gave him a focal point as his respiratory tract continued to seize, and he eventually slumped against his leather-clad helper, panting as sweat and involuntary tears painted long, pale streaks on his smoke-darkened face.

"H-Hizashi—what," he trailed off, eyelids fluttering shut as his lungs once again protested the voicing of his confusion.

* * *

He was brought back to consciousness by a leather-clad hand rapidly tapping his cheek. A gust of pure, untainted air grazed the lower half of his face, and the uncomfortable moisture that came along with oxygen masks built-up a small distance from his chin as he exhaled shakily. Sandpaper grated against his eyeballs as he cracked his eyelids just wide enough to gain a semblance of understanding as to what was happening around him as he faintly registered the hard ground beneath him.

Hizashi Yamada, known to the rest of the community as the voice hero, Present Mic, leaned back with a sigh of relief and a brittle, wobbling grin. With both hands wound tightly in his hair in what was likely a gesture of panic, he tried to save face by adjusting his headphones, then dropping his hands to clasp them together before his mouth, elbows resting on his knees as he crouched next to his longtime friend and coworker. Shōta watched as the eerily quiet man gave a nearby paramedic a grateful nod and thumbs-up of silent dismissal, conveying his ability to continue the task at hand. After all, heroes were regularly trained in basic emergency care—nothing major, really, but it was enough that they understood (at least in theory) how to administer breathing treatments from emergency oxygen masks and canisters—and there were plenty of others who likely also required more intensive medical assistance. It was better to free up resources for use elsewhere whenever possible in situations like these.

"Better?" Hizashi asked, leaning forward and cutting into his bubble of personal space. His verdant eyes gleamed with worry as Shōta allowed his eyelids to drift shut again, mumbling a quasi-affirmation that probably sounded more like early morning grumbling to an outsider. As it was, even his best friend questioned the garbled response, blond eyebrows knitting together in concern, "Hm?"

The man known in the hero community as Eraserhead took another long breath, as deep as his aggravated lungs would allow, and replied in an exhale just as lengthy, "Tired."

"I—I know. That's what I'm worried about."

Something about the radio host's tone elicited a spark of alarm in Shōta's brain, and he struggled to open his bloodshot eyes. Deep lines creased his forehead as his dark eyebrows drew downward and together in confusion.

"Shōta," Hizashi began, reaching forward and smoothing the other man's dark hair back and away from his face, "You're always tired. I get that, but—how exactly did you manage to sleep through a fire? It's a bad one. Backdraft and the other firemen are still trying to put out the flames. You were one of the last people they found in the building, and they said the fire alarms were all blaring in your apartment."

That was a good question.

Shōta had no good answer.

He couldn't even remember hearing the fire alarms, so instead of verbally responding, he gave a half-hearted shrug from where he lay on the ground.

The hero-cum-DJ heaved a sigh and settled from his crouch into a more comfortable position simply sitting on the ground, long legs folded one over the other. He reached over and flicked the underground hero in the forehead, eliciting a small gasp of displeasure—just barely loud enough to be heard through the oxygen mask. With a dramatic sigh, Hizashi threw his arms up into the air in exasperation, crying out, "Ugh! You are no help!"

A beat of silence later, the blonde adjusted his slightly skewed sunglasses and turned his gaze to the clouds and smoke trails pervading the otherwise blue sky. "Seriously, though," he muttered—quite unusual for him, Shōta noted—then made a curious, almost strangled squawk—less unusual—and gestured toward the smoldering apartments, "How did this even happen! You'd think that someone would have caught that there was a fire before it got that far!"

"It was probably a candle or a stove or a—toaster or something that was left active," Shōta huffed with a crackling voice, scowling over at his friend. "People do that all the time. It's a hazard of living in an apartment."

"We're not just talking about a house fire, Shōta!" Hizashi stressed loudly, voice bordering on enhancement via his quirk as he flailed his arms in the air. "You were pulled from a raging inferno! To be honest, I don't even understand how you made it out without severe burns. I mean, I'm super happy that you're as safe as you are—even though I'm still worried beyond belief about you being able to sleep through all that—but—"

His hand against Hizashi's mouth brought a bit of blessed silence in the immediate vicinity as the blond flushed a brilliant shade of red in outrage—possibly embarrassment (he often found the radio host's moods and body language difficult to read)—, and Shōta shifted into a sitting position, adjusting the oxygen mask with his free hand.

"Shut up, Mic," the dark-haired teacher groaned in exhaustion, tone clipped and tense as he threw out a nickname for his friend. "Just let me breathe for a while."

* * *

Eventually, the wailing sirens and unnecessarily loud commentary from inquisitive bystanders became a dull roar at the back of Shōta's mind, and deeming himself well enough to carry on with life, he all but shoved the portable oxygen mask at his companion, grumbling a gruff "thanks" as he cast his eternally weary gaze to the charred, skeletal remains of his apartment building. It was still smoking, but the firefighters had stopped the spray of water, likely deeming the flames complacent enough not to roar to life again without substantial aid. Shōta had no doubt their efforts would continue after they took a short break now that everyone had been rescued and the immediate threat had been nullified.

He must have appeared more despondent than he felt because Hizashi scooted his way over to him, bumping their shoulders together and leaning his head of meticulously-styled hair against Shōta's own sweat-and-soot-laden locks, uncaring of the arched eyebrows and curious stares that were directed at the pair of them.

"You can stay with me," Hizashi offered with a toothy smile, waving a hand toward the apartment complex, "for as long as you need."

Shōta took only a moment to think about the offer.

"No."

"W-what!" came the cry of despair. "Why not!"

With a roll of his aching eyes, Shōta slumped, dropping his head to rest on his palm as he braced his elbow on his knee.

"I'd never sleep," he explained as if speaking to a small child. "I'm sure you'd keep me up all night and day. Your neighbors would definitely talk."

And Hizashi's—Present Mic's—reputation most certainly would not benefit from an imagined relationship with him as a fresh supply of ammunition for the press' war against heroes. Being teachers at UA with all of the recent student-involved incidents was a bad enough blow to their integrity. Despite having evolved in some ways, their society was still one that feared those who were different in both quirks and other proclivities.

Still, if a step further from mere friendship would not interfere with his own stealth-based tactics, it might be worth agitation by the press if only to see his cohort turn as brilliantly red as a fire engine again.

"W-what!" the DJ sputtered, completely caught off-guard by the comment.

The decibels were definitely higher with that screech, and Shōta smirked even as he rubbed his ear closest to his friend with his free hand.


	3. Chapter 3: Caught in the Crosshairs

Time had passed, and Shōta found himself breathing with greater ease with each passing minute, although his pattern of inhaling and exhaling was still occasionally peppered with phlegm-laden coughs.

At his insistence that he was fine and others needed support, Hizashi had eventually wandered away to comfort those affected by the fire with his energetic and cheery Present Mic hero persona. Children and adults alike had flocked to the intensely vocal hero, ignoring their despair in favor of speaking with one of their idols. Present Mic was a media darling, so even the news crews had gathered to speak with him, disregarding respect in favor of a great sound bite and a flashy video clip—both of which Present Mic undoubtedly supplied.

They were not at UA, so the voice hero did not outwardly carry the same bias toward reporters here as he did when they encroached upon the campus where he was one of the only defenses between the media and the students. Shōta still found a spark of amusement in the memory of Hizashi comparing reporters to villains. Here in this situation, however, Present Mic humored all, coddling both children and adults alike regardless of whether or not they were some of the less respectful media leeches.

Shōta studied the leather-clad radio host with a slight tilt of his head and lowered eyelids, blinking rapidly to ward away the sting of air against his irritated eyes. The blonde's body consisted of tense lines and sharp movements rather than this customary loose, relaxed posture, and it was obvious to Shōta that Hizashi was still dwelling on the fire and Shōta's last-minute rescue from the flames. A twinge of regret plucked at his heartstrings for worrying his friend, but exhaustion was a repercussion of their line of work. Hizashi knew that, as well, but he often chose to ignore it.

Thankfully, the hustle and bustle centered around Shōta's apartment complex had died down slightly, and the crowd of spectators had thinned out, many of them losing interest in the happenings now that the fire had been doused. If he had to take a guess, the surge of adrenaline—the rush of exhilaration—that came with the danger of the situation was what drew so many civilians to the scene; being a spectator with the ability to shout warnings and observations to "help" one's favorite hero was likely the only connection many people made with the larger-than-life world of heroics. Honestly, from the viewpoint of an actual hero who would make such an admittance, the only "help" the bystanders provided created confusion that really only aided the side of the disaster or the villains. Crowds were just hindrances or neatly wrapped packages of hostages.

Shōta had never really been a fan of spectators since he had been injured one too many times protecting curious civilians—not just by villain attacks but also by his fellow heroes when they were distracted by potential casualties of bystanders. Given the nature of his non-physical quirk, it was actually physically safer for him to be an underground hero, despite the less-than-stellar types of crimes he dealt with on a nightly basis. Brute force could only help with so many situations.

Moving his thoughts away from a topic he would like to continue skirting around in order to play nice-ish with his colleagues, the teacher distantly noted that various news vans were still stationed in the area, the reporters having moved on from harassing Present Mic so that they were strategically posed in front of the smoking ruins of the grouping of buildings. Their demeanors were serious—an act, he noted—despite how they had earlier been chomping at the bit for a juicy scoop about hero involvement in the situation. Anything could be sensationalized, after all, and the victims of accidents were great material for news drivel.

Victim. Just thinking the word left a bad taste in his mouth. He had not tolerated thinking of himself as such after the USJ attack, and that mindset was not going to change just because he no longer had a home. The lack of a housing unit of some sort did not matter all that much to him; he could sleep anywhere, a fact that he proved on a daily basis. Besides that, material possessions could be easily replaced, particularly on a pro-hero salary—even if his bank account was not nearly as impressive as those of the heroes in the spotlight—, and he did not have many belongings to begin with which something that both Kayama Nemuri and Hizashi had scolded him for in the past, claiming he needed to at least keep items that reminded him of the good times in his life rather than living, as Nemuri worded it, "a dull existence in a rather spartan apartment."

I am many things, but a victim is not one of them, he thought adamantly, lips pressing into a firm, displeased slant.

His bloodshot black eyes were half-hidden behind his drooping eyelids as he sat on the hot cement ground contemplating the word "victim" as he absently raised an open water bottle to his chapped lips. It had been shoved into his hand by an emergency worker at some point who had then, along with Hizashi, instructed him to take a small sip of the chilled fluid. He had continued taking small sips as the minutes ticked by, and the icy condensation from the plastic container trickled down his arm, paving pale pathways in the soot that was still smeared across his skin. He desperately needed a shower and a fresh set of clothing, but it would be a while yet before he could do anything about his appearance, if only because his skin was beginning to itch.

Thank goodness it was Sunday and that he did not have to worry about teaching at UA.

Monday would be utter hell when his co-workers and students learned of the fire, even if they did not connect him to it. There would be nonstop chatter.

While his eyes were distantly focused on them, a news crew directed a camera in his general direction, and Shōta ducked his head, drawing in on himself as he hunkered down in a somewhat feeble attempt to make himself less noticeable in his all-black attire and bare feet on the light gray sidewalk. His capture weapon sat at his side, a pile of fabric trappings cast aside in the heat. This—avoiding the media—was one of the many reasons he preferred to keep the tool settled atop his shoulders as often as possible so that he could duck down and hide his features, but honestly, it was just not practical to wear it while he was sitting around in the heat awaiting news as to how the temporary living situations of the apartment's residents would be handled.

After all, with a fire that monstrous and expansive, it had to be a case of arson, Shōta reasoned as he held a large, battle-battered hand in front of his face in a half-hearted attempt to block the camera's view of his face in place of the barrier normally created by his weapon, taking another slow sip of water. He had not heard of any recent intentional fires set across the city, so the conflagration was likely not to be attributed to a serial arsonist. That was something, at least, but the lack of such news fostered the question of why his apartment complex in particular had been targeted. As far as he knew, he was the only pro-hero in the residence (they tended not to cluster together in living spaces lest they tempt villains to attack during the heroes' downtimes), and while some of his neighbors were particularly annoying, it was highly unlikely that any of them had aggravated someone enough to set their households aflame. That really only seemed to happen in the terrible television dramas that Hizashi forced him to watch as a teenager.

It was too much of a coincidence, in his experience, that he had clearly struck a nerve with at least—at least—three separate drug rings and then had his home torched to the ground, but if he mentioned that odd succession of events to Hizashi, the other man would humor his line of reasoning for a bit before calling him paranoid. Telling Hizashi about his suspicions would also undoubtedly unearth the fact that he had needed to visit the hospital overnight, as well, and Shōta was absolutely positive that he could not handle the stress of being nagged by his friend about his health on top of his current levels of exhaustion. He would probably have a stroke from spiking blood pressure while keeping his mouth shut against biting rebuttals to accusations of stubbornness if it came to that.

He gently parted his fingers crooked from years of using his capture weapon and countless oddly-healed bone fractures and breaks and peered through them only to find, to his intense displeasure, that the news crew had decided he was a wonderful source of material for an indubitably tear-jerking segment where he would be painted as a newly homeless man.

The aggravation he felt at that realization was halfhearted, at best; all in all, it would not be the first time someone had made such an assumption. Teachers had assumed such in the past before they came to know him. Students always seemed startled by his seeming lack of grooming standards along with his odd sleeping habits. Civilians rarely believed he was a pro-hero even when he flashed his license.

Hm.

Hizashi may actually have been onto something with trying to convince him to put more effort into his appearance.

Do I really care?

Not at all.

Let the media paint him as a homeless man. He was already the media's scapegoat for anything that happened at UA. Could it really get any worse?

"Shōta!"

He lowered his hand and actively turned away from the cameras that were aimed in his direction. Apparently, Present Mic had finished catering to his beloved listeners for the moment and was ready to return to a brief period of just being Hizashi Yamada. The blond radio host was leisurely striding toward him, long leather-clad legs making short work of the distance between them as his heavy boots thumped loudly against the hot pavement.

Shōta considered standing from the sidewalk for a split-second. Then he took another sip of water and set the plastic bottle to the side, still half-full. He turned a flat, deadened stare up to his friend and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight silhouetting the voice hero from behind. With a slight tilt of his head and a nearly unnoticeable smirk tugging at his lips, the dark-haired teacher quietly asked, "Are you done with your niceties?"

Hizashi flounced onto the hard ground beside him with an vocalized "oof" of surprise when his leather pants made contact with heated ground. He gesticulated wildly as he replied, arms telling a story of their own in tandem with his loud words, "Yeah! I always love talking to my fans, especially after things like this happen. They seem to be in better spirits, at least, knowing that we're watching out for them and that they won't be forgotten in the aftermath."

"Yeah." Shōta nodded in response. He was terrible at comforting people in general, but he had a soft spot for children. Adults, however, were not his area of expertise when it came to his awkward attempts to provide a semblance of solace. Still, he always felt a bit accomplished whenever someone perked up after words of his own brand of encouragement.

The blonde flung out his arm, pointing at the smoking ruins of the apartment and also, coincidentally, toward the news reporters still hovering around the scene. His leather jacket creaked as he shifted his torso to face the devastation. When he glanced back at Shōta, his vivid green eyes held a fire behind them as he declared, "We're going to make this right. I've got to help my listeners."

Shōta's faint smirk became a soft smile, and the tenseness from around his bloodshot eyes lessened at his friend's earnest attitude. That attitude was what he liked about Hizashi, what drew him to the other despite his own numerous attempts to remain a loner until his dying day—not that he would ever admit such aloud with the music-lover present. The positivity, the cheer, the sheer optimism in the face of adversity—the man was simply the personification of enthusiasm, and even if one did not smile often, the urge to do so increased whenever Hizashi was around.

"And you, of course. I'll help you out as much as you'll let me, too. Seriously, you can come stay at my place until everything is taken care of," the man added with a brilliant grin and a flutter of eyelashes, teasing as close friends are wont to do—or so Shōta had been reassured on multiple occasions. "I could do your hair, and you could paint my nails. It'll be like old times—sleepovers and the like!"

A quiet huff of amusement disguised as a small cough escaped him at the joke. Casting his eyes to the side lest he be taken in by Hizashi's personable wiles and succumb to his offer, he hummed in a mockery of thought and once again replied, "No."

Eyebrows drawn together, green eyes wide with exaggerated disbelief, and lips trembling with emotion as his mustache quivered slightly—the expression of distress on Hizashi's face was nothing short of amusing as he wailed, "Why!"

"I told you already," Shōta replied lowly, rolling his eyes. "People would talk."

For someone supposedly so distraught, Hizashi recovered with miraculous speed. He threw his hands into the air, gloved fingers raised toward the sun and then lowered his arms with the speed of a rocket, clapping his hands onto Shōta's shoulders with such force that Shōta very nearly visibly winced as the bruises that remained after his run-in with the three villains the previous night pulsed violently from the sudden agitation. Hizashi's voice steadily increased in volume, although he still seemed to be aware enough of his surroundings that he was keeping himself mostly in check as he exclaimed rhetorically, "Do I look like I care what people think!"

Shōta was somewhat taken aback by the almost irritated response and must have appeared visibly startled as he considered the voice hero's obscenely loud outburst.

Well, no, he admitted mentally, thinking about things logically. He does what he wants regardless of social norms.

That was part of why he had latched onto Hizashi as a close friend.

The blonde leaned forward with an intense glint in his eyes, and Shōta slowly leaned back as their noses drew near one another.

Too close for comfort—at least in public.

His heart was beating as if he had sprinted a mile at break-neck speed, and his stomach was lurching like it had when he had first run across a stretch of powerlines and made the mistake of glancing down below. Heat rushed across his cheeks, and Shōta found that he was grateful for the cover of soot on his fair skin so that his colleague's attention would not be drawn to his blush.

Then, Hizashi sniffed and wrinkled his nose, and the peculiar tension was broken.

"For real, though, Shōta, please at least stop by my apartment and shower. I know you're into being a manly man—and Kirishima would definitely be proud of you for that—, but you smell rank. You've got a spare outfit there, I'm pretty sure, and if you don't, I'll find something that'll fit you even if it's just sweatpants and a huge t-shirt."

For a moment, Shōta was well and truly, legitimately offended, and before he could calm himself, his fist formed a fist and struck Hizashi's leather-covered shoulder, clattering slightly against the metal shoulder pad as his black hair flared upward and his eyes flashed red before his powers puttered out from energy exhaustion, sending his head spinning. In spite of that, he found himself clambering to his feet and swiping his capture weapon from the ground in the process, and the dark-haired teacher took a moment to try and dust himself off before giving up, all but throwing his looped scarf over his head, and glowering down at his friend. Friend, he thought miserably, his body aching from all of its strenuous activity over the last day. Yeah, if he wasn't a friend, I'd have punched him in the throat, Shōta admitted to himself as he took a calming breath.

"For being as smart as I know you are, tact never was your strong suit," he all but growled, realizing the irony in himself saying such. It was a familiar argument for both of them, unfortunately. "Personal hygiene was the last of my worries when I woke up."

Hizashi had the decency to look somewhat ashamed as he reached out as if to drag Shōta back down to the ground to sit beside him, but the underground hero huffed in annoyance and stomped away with another goal in mind. He needed to know about the temporary housing situations for himself and all the others who were affected by the fire, and he would use this surge of aggravation towards Hizashi to make his body move to carry out his investigation. His movements as he approached a rope of caution tape slowed to a halt, and he signaled to one of the officers nearby, annoyance flaring as the young man, looking fresh out of the police academy and new to the police force, raised a suspicious eyebrow at him, rudely refusing to move closer.

Kids these days, Shōta thought in exasperation as he calmly closed his eyes and counted to ten. I get it; I'm a mess. This is nothing new. Let's please just move on with life already.

"I want to speak with the detective in charge of the investigation," he called tersely, voice crackling as a reminder of his near suffocation by means of smoke not long before, and he desperately tried not to glare at the young officer.

The officer shifted his stance, crossing his arms and staring at the dark-haired teacher as if he were debating something with himself, but he eventually moved closer to the caution tape almost hesitantly, wrinkling his nose as a light breeze wafted the smells of smoke, charred materials, and sweat from Shōta's form into his presence. Clearing his throat, the young man puffed out his chest, drawing attention to the shining badge pinned there, and tried to speak with authority.

"Detective Tsukauchi is currently working with community representatives to secure housing for those displaced by the fire. Is there something I can help you with," he paused, curling his lip and eyeing Shōta skeptically as if he were a less-than-reputable, third-rate villain, "sir?"

"Tell him Eraserhead wants to talk when he's free."

Tan features paled quickly, and the young officer nearly squeaked, "E-Eraserhead?"

Being able to throw around his pro-hero name was satisfying. It did not happen often. However, while he may not be well-known by the public, the reputation of his deeds preceded him in the city's police department. Many of the officers had never personally met him—or even seen him—but still at least knew of him.

They were also well-aware of his quirk and that it worked just as effectively on theirs, minor though they may be, as it did on the quirks of villains.

A shark-like smile spread across his lips—Hizashi had always said his grin showed a few too many teeth to make a person comfortable—, but it quickly dropped from his dirtied features as the young officer, despite having snapped into a salute, stammered anxiously, "I'll need to see your hero license, sir."

What.

Shōta found himself staring, completely dumbfounded by the audacity of the officer.

Clearly sensing his displeasure, the young man—Officer Yamada, Shōta noted with a snort, obviously no relation to Hizashi—flushed in what his body language projected as the beginning inklings of sheer terror. His hand fell from its salute, and he extended both arms in front of himself, hands at right angles to the limbs in an adamant gesture of peace. Officer Yamada cleared his throat and spoke in a voice that he seemed to think was more official than his startled squeak from earlier, "Detective Tsukauchi is very highly in demand at the moment. I would hate to waste his time, and if you don't have evidence of your identity claim—well."

The young officer shrugged and left it at that, sweating profusely as Shōta glowered.

He's young, the disgruntled teacher reminded himself. Calm down. Just count, and shake it off.

Shōta forced his browline to relax into a neutral expression. Officer Yamada was just doing his job. He made a valid point; it would be terrible to waste Tsukauchi's time, but the erasure hero had valid concerns that needed to be expressed.

Ten, nine, eight—

Still—did he look like he had anything besides the clothes on his back? He undoubtedly appeared as if he had ventured to Hell and back again—and smelled like it, too, according to Hizashi. He most certainly did not have his hero license on his person. In fact, he was fairly certain he had dropped it next to his keys on his kitchen counter.

Maybe.

Had he dropped it there?

With a mental shrug, he decided the details did not matter. The wallet containing his license was not in any of the pockets of his hero outfit. It had probably melted and fused with the countertop before being charred to a crisp.

Seven, six, five, four—

"I do not currently have my license," Shōta stated coldly, staring at him with calculation. Would the foolish boy try to stop him if he ducked under the tape into the crime scene? Was it really worth it to discover the outcome of such actions? It was rare that the intimidation factor created by his height—which was impressive if he was not around All Might, Blood King, Hizashi, or, well, pretty much most of the male heroes—and dark, sleep-deprived appearance did not work in his favor in situations involving coercion—although some would honestly call it borderline bullying.

Semantics.

"Well, to be honest, sir, if you were doing rescue work, you really should have it on your person," Officer Yamada suggested boldly with a newfound strain of stubbornness. "And isn't Eraserhead normally a night time hero?"

Three, two—

The nerve of this of man! He was right about the time of his active duty hours, but did he seriously look like he had been doing any rescuing? How clueless was this man?

He would compare the officer to his students for sheer stubbornness, but even the dunces of the class could utilize some sort of logic and apply what they knew to the situations around them—albeit slowly.

"Officer Yamada! They need a few more people on the south side of the complex. Would you mind heading that way?" called a very familiar voice. It was a soothing voice—one of logic and reason.

Tsukauchi. Just in the nick of time.

Shōta heaved an audible sigh as the officer in question abandoned his current post in favor of his new assignment, all but sprinting to the named destination.

Tsukauchi approached the caution tape, idly making conversation as he eyed his retreating underling with raised eyebrows.

"Sorry about that. Officer Yamada is still learning how to interact with civilians. It's been a long day for us all, but," the detective trailed off as he finally made eye contact with the target of his words and finally realized who, exactly, he was speaking to about the situation. He started, nearly jumping in place despite his normally unflappable attitude, but then reached out and all but yanked the caution tape upward to grant the pro-hero entrance to the crime scene.

"But," he drew the word out slowly, studying Shōta's exceedingly disheveled appearance with a concerned crease of his forehead and a slight frown, "you would know all about long days, wouldn't you, Eraserhead?"

Shōta did not manage to suppress a snort of amusement. Instead, he strode forward under the yellow caution tape and settled his hands on his hips as he shrugged at the older man. "Long days are not uncommon recently."

With a gentle smile playing on his lips, Tsukauchi gave an understanding nod. Then he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and ventured, "You look like you've been through the wringer—I mean, again, that is. What are you even doing here? You should be resting, and this isn't your normal thing. Honestly, you should still be in the hospital with those wounds you had."

Wait for it.

Epiphanies were beautiful things to watch play out on facial features. A widening of eyes, the mouth forming an 'o' of understanding, eyebrows knitting in an upward "v" as realization dawned, and, at times, a blush of embarrassment all came together in a visual display of connections of data streams in the brain. In the case of Tsukauchi, the man leaned forward and clapped his hands on Shōta's shoulders and nearly whispered in disbelief, "No!"

And we have a winner.

"Yes. I was sleeping," Shōta drawled dryly, reaching up to idly rub his finger at a drooping, irritated eye, hissing slightly as he only managed to rub soot into the corner of it. "Detective, I'm the only hero in this complex. It's too much of a coincidence for this to be some random crime."

He moved his hand a bit further up his face to press his palm over his eye socket, placing gentle pressure on the organ and mentally pleading for it to tear up and soothe its inflamed blood vessels. "Wherever you place the residents, I need to be housed elsewhere, preferably away from crowds. None of them need to be associated with me if my suspicions are correct. There will probably be a follow-up."

Tsukauchi looked appalled. He withdrew his hands from Shōta's shoulders and lowered them to his sides. He had foregone his tan overcoat and hat due to the heat, but he was still impeccably dressed and looked iconically official.

"Does this have anything to do with whatever happened to you last night?" the detective questioned quietly, discreetly glancing to the sides to check for eavesdroppers.

Shōta appreciated the caution.

"It's a logical conclusion," he admitted with a small shrug that pulled uncomfortably at the muscles in his neck. He inconspicuously lifted a bare foot from the pavement, balancing with ease on the other as he allowed the lifted sole to cool, and then he repeated the process with his other foot, casting his tired stare toward the skeletal building complex. "They seemed irritated that I've been focusing on interrupting their operations lately."

He paused in consideration.

"They could have killed me—" he added bluntly, blatantly ignoring Tsukauchi's arched eyebrow and frown of disapproval, "but they left me alone when I couldn't fight back. I wasn't in the hospital for long, so this strike would likely have been planned prior to their meeting last night."

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily as he replied in exasperation, "You heroes will be the death of me. You clearly have someone—or multiple people—stalking you if they found where you live; I didn't even know where that was until today. I know how quickly you evade notice when you realize you are being watched, so it has to be someone with skill—which is bad, might I add. It sounds like you have a trained professional after you."

Shōta's lips pressed into a thin line, and his eyes narrowed.

"When you draw attention to yourself, you certainly do so with a 'bang,'" Detective Tsukauchi sighed.

"So it seems," Shōta agreed glumly with a slight tip of his head. He spun on his heel, intent on heading back to Hizashi now that his temper had cooled. "I will keep my distance for now. I'll be inactive until I can replace my hero license, but keep me informed about where everyone will be staying once the details are ironed out."

"Will do, Eraserhead! Take care of yourself out there," Tsukauchi said seriously with a slight wave and nod of his head. "And clean yourself up. You look and smell like death warmed over."

Shōta heaved a sigh as he exited the crime scene.

Maybe he would go take a shower at Hizashi's, after all.


	4. Chapter 4: Attempted Return to Normalcy

In the end, Shōta submitted to the society's demands of acceptable personal hygiene practices, and by doing so, he very bluntly told a sulking Hizashi that he would go home with him long enough only to shower and change clothes. Dinner was also a requirement of that arrangement, but he did not have to outright state such; the blonde knew quite well when something was implied, even if he chose to feign ignorance often enough.

That being said, showering, clothing himself, and securing dinner—in that order—were Shōta's plans for the rest of the evening as he awaited a call on Hizashi's phone from Tsukauchi detailing the area of the city he should avoid and revealing where his own temporary housing was to be located. He had not explicitly told Tsukauchi that he would be in Hizashi's presence, but the man was smart enough to draw such a conclusion after watching him wander back to the voice hero after their conversation, and he would undoubtedly use the hero directory to find Present Mic's phone number. Shōta was well-aware that he would be bumming various services from his friend for at least a few hours, and Tsukauchi probably realized that, as well. After all, he had no access to his money at the moment; his bank card had likely melted, any cash he carried had melded with the debris of his home, and his cellphone, his most direct means of communication, had also inevitably met its demise.

"Hey, Shōta—how partial are you to your hero outfit?" Hizashi asked, loudly as always, from the other side of the shower curtain. Shōta could hear him rustling around in the main portion of the bathroom, likely cleaning up the ashen footprints that had been left behind during Shōta's barefoot trek through Hizashi's less-than-pristine but still liveable apartment. Oddly enough, this was not a completely new occurrence in its entirety—having his home set ablaze: yes, but having his friend invade the imagined solitude of the restroom to pester him while he was showering: no. That had happened far too often and had created many embarrassing situations throughout the years of their friendship with one another.

Those were memories better left for another time, perhaps.

He ducked his head under the spray in hopes of dissipating the embarrassed flush that had spread from his collarbone to his scalp, shivering slightly as the lukewarm water—hot water just did not seem appealing after the heated trauma of the day—trickled through his mass of tangled, greasy hair and down his soot-darkened neck, and he thought of more peaceful memories while formulating a suitable response: the cat café, the seven hours of sleep he had managed to achieve the weekend prior, and the cooling sensation of nice, moisturizing eye drops. Drawing his head back out from under the pressurized spray, he took a deep gulp of air, breathing in the sparse steam and immediately slamming down on his body's urge to cough. Instead, he cleared his throat and glanced dubiously at his side of the shower curtain, realizing he should probably answer the loud man on the other side before it was decided that he required assistance in the shower.

Again, there was a story there, and again, the memory was best left for another time.

The man had no shame—or an understand of personal bubbles.

"I only have one other. It's stashed at UA. Why?"

"It's just—this needs to be bagged, tagged, and sent elsewhere," Hizashi's voice held a grimace, and Shōta could hear him struggle not to gag at the smoky smell of the garments, vividly imagining the look of utter disgust on the radio host's features. "It's dead, Shōta. I'm sure we could even have Endeavor finish cremating it. It wouldn't take much. Like, parts of it are disintegrating when I touch it. I don't know how it was holding together while on your body."

Shōta rolled his eyes to the heavens, his expression that of someone who was just done with a situation. He would be the first to admit that his costume had seen better days; it was definitely ragged around the edges, and some of the seams were more worn than was acceptable by most people's standards. Slowly, for the sake of providing a response, he drawled, "I'm rolling my eyes, Hizashi."

The man carried on with the topic at hand, ignoring the vocalization of Shōta's facial expression.

"Or, on second thought, maybe we could just ask Todoroki or Bakugō to finish the job. Shōta, the cuffs of your sleeves are fraying and missing several chunks of fabric, and—wait, is this a bite mark! Your pant legs are just as bad. How long have you had this gear!"

The exclamations were sincere and somewhat horrified.

"If I replaced my gear as frequently as you did, I would not even be able to afford an apartment," Shōta responded frankly, "not that paying for said apartment matters now." He paused and turned his back to the spray of the shower, idly rubbing his fingers against the back of his scalp and wincing when they tugged on a snarl of hair. "Teaching at UA has made paying bills significantly easier, but replacing my gear—which is still functional, thank you—is low on my list of priorities until something major happens to it."

There was a lull in the conversation.

"A bite out of your shirt isn't serious?" Hizashi asked in a downright horrified tone. "Also, do you sew? This is definitely hand-stitched."

Shōta did not dignify either question with a response.

Hizashi was not phased by the lack of reply.

"Back to the real issue at hand, though—I could dedicate a moment of silence to your outfit's untimely demise on Put Your Hands Up Radio. The kids—Class 1-A likes to pretend that they don't listen to my show, but we both know they do," the blonde paused and took an audible breath, and Shōta could perfectly imagine him making finger guns, "The kids would definitely appreciate a segment like that, even if no one else really knows much about 'Eraserhead.'"

Truth be told, Shōta had long since begun to tune out his friend, particularly since he was now faced with a difficult trial. Before him, adhered to the side of the shower by what had to be industrial strength suction cups, was a wire basket—an enclosed shelf, really—of hair care products.

Shōta was a simple man when it came to his grooming habits; Hizashi was not.

The erasure hero stared balefully at the selection of products before him, lips tugging downward into a pained not-quite-pout. The bottles told of shampoo for voluminous hair, nourishing conditioners, moisturizing cleansers, hair detoxifiers, deep conditioning masks, miscellaneous body scrubs, shower gels, and foaming body washes. His outstretched hand hovered over each of the products before roughly plucking a bottle labeled with some high-end brand logo and the descriptive text of "Clarifying Shampoo: Lemongrass and Ginger" from the caddy.

Hizashi was a complicated being. Shōta would never be able to keep up with this many shower products. Bar soap was often his cleansing method of choice for both his hair and body.

With a small, annoyed huff, he popped open the cap of the bottle and squirted a fair dollop onto the palm of his rugged hand. Carefully, he placed the shampoo bottle back into the shower caddy, half-expecting the container to slide down the water-slick wall from the sheer weight of the hair products it contained. Then, he began to lather the soap into his oily hair, noting with disgust how the spray of the shower was already beginning to wash dirt and soot from any place the soap touched, dyeing the water a deep, murky brown before it was sucked down the drain in a small whirl of force.

"The lemongrass and ginger one, huh?" Hizashi piped up suddenly. Shōta heard his friend plop down on a closed toilet, obviously hell-bent on hanging out in the bathroom for the long haul while the exhausted man bathed. "I should have guessed. It's the most straightforward of those products. You'll probably want to use the body wash that goes in that set."

Nose crinkling faintly at the light and spicy herbal scent from the soapy lather that covered his head, Shōta cast his dark gaze upon the mentioned bottle of body wash and then down along his body, sighing quietly in dismay at the dirt that covered his form despite the coverage that had been provided by his thick—but honestly threadbare—hero clothing. In response to Hizashi's suggestion, he hummed noncommittally, leaning back to rinse the shampoo suds from his dripping black locks. He briefly glanced down to confirm that the water pooling around his feet had all but turned black as the soap washed away the grime from his hair.

He cast an uncertain glance at the shower curtain again, grumbling just loudly enough to be heard over the rush of water striking the floor of the shower tub, "Why are you even in here?"

A bright, sprightly laugh boomed—too loudly—and rattled many elements of the bathroom. "Oh! I brought you a change of clothes. I found a pair of sweatpants, and since I know you're not a fan of tight clothes, I snagged an oversized tank for you," the radio host intoned cheerfully.

Hesitantly, and only for the sake of removing the filth from his body, Shōta grabbed the suggested bottle of body wash from the shower caddy, resigning himself to smelling entirely too fresh for his usual tastes. Artificial scents had never really appealed to him, but he supposed this one was tolerable. He would smell like Hizashi—he realized this—, but he would not be around anyone—particularly Nemuri—who would jump to false conclusions about why he smelled like Hizashi.

"Thanks," he stated sincerely, scrubbing the body wash along his body almost mechanically. "It's the pink pair of sweats, isn't it? They're comfortable, at least."

He quickly washed the last traces of dirt away, and shut off the water, idly shaking his hands to disperse the water droplets that had collected along his arms.

"Yeah," Hizashi replied with ease. There was a moment where the only sounds that pervaded the air were two sets of breathing and the water sliding down the drain. When the voice hero next spoke, he sounded dismayed, "You didn't use the conditioner."

Shōta could not stop the snort of amused disbelief that escaped him, nor could he stop the breathy laugh that bubbled up in his throat. "Really? I used your shampoo and body wash. Wasn't that enough?"

He paused.

"Now," he stuck his arm through the small gap between the shower wall and the curtain and made a grabbing motion with his hand. "Make yourself useful, and hand me a towel."

"Hey! What am I—your servant?" Hizashi teased fondly, although there was almost an embarrassed lilt to his voice. Not deterred in the slightest, his friend quickly shoved an overly soft towel against his hand, and Shōta heard him stand a walk toward the restroom door, closing it behind himself with a soft click and granting the erasure hero some semblance of privacy. From behind the closed door, he heard the English teacher shout, "I'm ordering food for us!"

Shōta did not bother replying. Instead, he pulled the curtain to the side and stepped out onto the obnoxiously yellow, plush bathroom mat strategically placed next to the shower tub, methodically collecting water droplets from his skin with the provided towel. Absently, he threw the towel over his head and scrubbed at his hair, ruffling it to dry it—something Hizashi would undoubtedly disapprove of, citing split ends and frizz.

Tossing the towel into the laundry hamper nestled in the corner of the room, the exhausted teacher shook out the pink sweatpants and then stepped into them, immediately wishing for some type of barrier between his nether regions and the fuzzy lining of the garment. He shook off the annoyance quickly enough and shrugged the black tank top over his head, tugging it down along his torso until he deemed he was acceptably covered and would be deemed presentable. He forewent glancing in the mirror due to the fact that he knew dark bags and pale, tight skin would stare back at him, and he did not require a reminder of his fatigue.

Opening the restroom door and wandering into the living room of the apartment yielded an odd sight that left Shōta with raised eyebrows and a vague expression of concern on his features. Hizashi sat at the kitchen counter, angrily jamming his finger against the screen of his phone as he angrily responded to a text message. Under his breath, he was muttering something about 'shitty conditions' and 'more respect than that.'

"Hizashi?"

"Oh!" the man exclaimed, nearly fumbling his phone in his haste to throw up a cheery mask over his features. He ran his palm along the smooth curve of his styled hair and grinned brightly, placing his phone gently on the counter with clear effort. "I went ahead and ordered us curry. It should be here soon."

"Sounds good."

Shōta was not one to pry, and with a shrug, he decided that Hizashi would blurt out what was bothering him sooner or later if it really was a problem. He strode across the hardwood flooring and after a moment of debate, flopped bonelessly onto the hideous orange couch that his friend so adored. It was as ugly, if not more so, than some of the villains Shōta had fought in the past, but it was extremely plush and comfortable. Almost immediately, he could feel his body sinking into the cushions, and he exhaled peacefully.

"So," the radio host began quietly, a hint of calculation in his voice.

Shōta glanced over to meet narrowed green eyes, half-hidden behind gaudy amber glasses. He immediately ran through a list of plausible reasons why Hizashi would be studying him: his chronic exhaustion, the residual rattle in his lungs due to smoke inhalation (they had been reassured that it would fade quickly), something the talented hellspawn of Class 1-A recently did without his notice or care—anything of that sort.

"How'd you get all of those bruises? You didn't mention them outside your apartment."

He did not expect that.

Maybe he should have at least looked at his reflection in the mirror before exiting the bathroom. He vaguely remembered thinking that most of his bruising from the night before had faded from his healing session in the hospital, but there had definitely been remnants, not that he had cared enough to study the marks closely, knowing that they were not life-threatening and would fade with time. Heroics tended to make one desensitized to minor wounds.

Curiously, Shōta glanced at his shoulders and swept his vision down the length of his body to see if he the bruising Hizashi had noticed was visible in his line of sight.

It was not.

As if reading his mind or reacting to the subtly perplexed wrinkling of his forehead, his friend arched an unimpressed eyebrow at his rather blasé reaction and, lightly tugging his sunglasses down the bridge of his straight nose, stated flatly, "They're around your neck, dummy."

His capture weapon wrapping too tightly around his throat, cutting off his air supply and then winding around his arms against his will—he suddenly remembered it vividly despite the concussion he had suffered during the attack. The standing collar of his glorified tracksuit had probably hidden most of the markings, so seeing them had undoubtedly come as a surprise to Hizashi. Shōta honestly felt lucky that the exuberant hero was not raising his voice in regard to the ill shock. It was both a blessing and a curse; after all, Hizashi was only ever really quiet in his anger when it was serious.

Shōta made a small effort to at least sit up for the conversation, shifting and scooting backwards until he could at least comfortably rest his back against the tall arm of the ugly couch. He subtly tried to rub his arms to ward away the chill assaulting his still damp skin and nearly flinched, just barely keeping his expression in check, when Hizashi strode forward suddenly, grabbed a plush throw blanket from the back of the piece of furniture, and tossed it at him. Shōta clutched the blanket around his shoulders and bare arms, tucking his feet in between the cushions, and the English teacher heaved a sigh and flounced onto a nearby armchair, one not as gaudy as the couch but still a vivid, eye-snagging shade of green.

"You're a mess, Shōta," Hizashi breathed in English, absently scratching at a spot just above his ear which was currently unadorned by the large headphones of his hero costume.

What was there to say?

"I found myself on the bad side of a few drug rings, and I'm probably now being hunted down by a professional killer while I'm exhausted and injured" seemed too intense a response for such sincere concern. That would probably only make Hizashi feel like he was keeping more secrets than he actually was, and that would be a path Shōta would like to avoid wandering. He would also be yelled at and called an idiot for trying to keep details hidden, undoubtedly.

"It's not like it hasn't happened before" made too light of the situation, and Hizashi would probably yell at him more loudly than truly necessary for attempting to make a joke. In truth, he had not actually been strangled by his own weapon since his first year of pro-hero work. He tended to take note of where the tendrils of the scarf were at all times after that incident in his youth.

The exhausted man found himself using his damp, curling hair as a shield against the onslaught of too-quiet worry from his friend.

Seriously, what could be said that would not set off his friend's concerned temper?

"I let my guard down, and they outsmarted me" was definitely the truth, even if it was scarce on the details, but the blow to his pride from admitting such aloud to his friend who had not seen him with the worst of his injuries from that particular incident would be comparable to slamming into the side of a rooftop smokestack again.

Hizashi grew impatient while he was mulling over an answer and threw his hands in the air, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table with a loud clatter as he leaned back in the armchair, body tense and rigid and screaming with irritation and obvious concern. Shōta's eyes were drawn to his long, leather-clad legs for a second longer than he cared to acknowledge. Instead, he simply lied to himself that he was in a light state of shock after the events of the night and his apartment's frame becoming reminiscent of charcoal. If not that, he was staring because he was even more tired than usual.

"I'm not an idiot," the radio host spat impetuously, words changing to English suddenly.

Shōta definitely knew that foreign word; Hizashi had directed it toward him with a myriad of emotions throughout the years.

The voice hero's emerald eyes flashed with protective fury that both calmed Shōta and made his heart race a mile a minute, and he snapped out, "I've seen what your capture weapon does to your arms. I've never seen you with marks like that around your throat, though! What happened!"

His voice was absolutely booming by the end of his tirade, and Shōta found himself slamming his calloused hands over his ears, nearly shouting a response before, due to the nearly painful activation of his quirk, the ringing in his ears died down enough for him to think things through, "A telekinetic villain!"

Well, that was a fair response. It was the truth, and conclusions could easily be inferred.

Hizashi drew back, looking genuinely upset that he had used his quirk so fiercely. He sprung to his feet and was at Shōta's side in two long strides, crouching beside the couch. Reaching out with bare hands—shaking hands, Shōta dimly noted—, he placed both atop Shōta's as if to provide extra comfort for his eardrums and gently rubbed the pads of his thumbs along the ridge of the dark-haired man's cheekbones in apology, whispering nearly wordlessly in English, "Sorry! Sorry!"

Damp hair fell around his shoulders with more force than usual, and Shōta stared at his friend balefully before closing his eyes to ward away the discomfort brought about by utilizing his power. His eyes felt like hot pokers had been stabbed into them. His head pulsed in tandem with his accelerated heartbeat.

He was not certain how long they stayed like that—both sets of hands over his own ears and Hizashi's thumbs sliding gently against his cheekbones—but his next memory was that of his long-time, temperamental friend carefully shaking his shoulder to wake him, claiming that their curry had arrived and that he needed to eat something. Shōta roused himself enough to sit up and scoot forward toward the coffee table as a plastic container was placed on a kitchen towel on the surface before him. His body appreciated the food; that he knew for certain, but if asked about it, he could not honestly comment on the taste of the food, having little memory of delving into it. However, before he could attempt to make conversation again after their meal, he felt himself dozing off, distantly noting the chirpy melody of Hizashi's ringtone and the aggravated whisper of "he's staying here with me tonight."

When he heard Hizashi carrying out his morning routine of readying himself for a day of teaching, the erasure hero awakened groggily nearly ten hours later feeling more rested than he had in a very long time.


End file.
